Some thoughts on Player Count

[Bruthol]

Burg; you missed the beautiful irony of telling people to get a life for not RPing.

I believe the real irony is people thinking (And I am because I think), that life only comes with having a body.
IRL means nothing, really. Life is your essence, not your meat.

Now I'm wondering why am I even answering that.

[Chevredoux93]

Hello

Just a thought about playercount (didnt read all the thread).

I really love it but i think perma-death is really against this game bringing and keeping a more important player base. Only few people (the best ) can handle this, at first.
So, i know many will be mad with this, but maybe imagine some ways to avoid "lose everything lol" when u get slaughtered could be good. Especially for noobies / casual players who can't stand the learning curve and quality race as well organized / defended villages of veterans. Lot of noobs have just hard times just to get a palissade up... remember your first times on hnh, getting metal is still a hard point to reach for most new players. You have to think about the weak players too if you want them to stay after they try the game "just to see".

[LadyGoo]

It's not the perma-death. It's the boredom.

[simimi]

Yes boredom, we need holes underground, caves with dangerous animales and treasure Chess with random qualité stuff in It ( Right I enjoy terraria At the moment)

[ArvinJA]

You have an increase in cost per point, both in material goods and the time it takes to source those goods. Of course, higher quality goods decreases the number needed and thus time. You have a decrease in advantage another point gives. I think I figured it up at one point to be something like a thousandth of a percent at 1000 UC (might not be that small of a gain, but it's a small fraction of a percent). Thus skills and stats have a double-dip diminishing return.

For quality of items, you have fixed sources that are generated with the world, secondary products from those can be spiraled up over time. Farming goods (animals, trees, silk, crops, and the prodcuts from them) have a stable progression over time of Xq/day as long as effort is put in each day.

I see a lot of complaints by people playing hermits about "keeping up," when in fact, they have never kept up unless they were heavy traders (in which case, you're not really a hermit, but an independent contractor for whichever villages you're trading with). In the case of hermits, they tend to go with the flow. They quit when they get bored or raided. Most changes in progression aren't going to affect them unless it makes the game harder to play, in which case they're likely to get bored faster in a game that, currently, has a fast burn out time.

Another thing that could slow progression down is increasing costs of skills and knowledges, but is that going to encourage anyone to stick around longer, or will they quit out of boredom or frustration?

Possibly one of the best posts on the forum so far, thank you.

[Russaria]

I'm just seeing the same trend that we see every world, though.

Hm, the post was mostly made to make people less quick to assume that they actually know that players are dropping off (when we don't have the relevant data).

This graph is nice but I think player count drop is obvious even without it, I regularly look at "players online" home page and the number gets lower on a daily basis.

I wouldnt say it is just same old world start curve, you'd have to show me the old graphs for me to agree with that, it seems a lot more drastic this time probably due to the p2p system. I'm pretty sure in old worlds the curve rounds off after while, this is more like free fall, I'm still seeing less players each week.

it's because, no matter the bootlicking of any degree of fanboi, word spreads, and when (despite the fact one may be known to be an a-hole) one reveals a depth of unethical disgusting personality that was only hinted at by former understanding...well...even fanboi blindness cannot lead others into the same trap. Granted what is and will continue to happen isn't what the "game" deserves, but it is everything those two deserve, and inevitable as Karma may be a bitch, but it is also patient, and relentless...lol

[TheLoli]

I'm a new player and don't really have any clue what Russaria is talking about. xP Though I am enjoying the game lots so far so I guess I cannot really comment on the boredness factor that you veteran players are speaking of. But on the permadeath thing I thought there was some inheritance system in place? Well I read about it on the wiki at least, but a lot of the information there seems to be wrong or outdated to begin with. Perhaps the inheritance system was broken when the belief sliders that they were talking about on the wiki was removed? I unno.. friend tested it and can still do the runestone thing, just doesn't get any LP from the deceased or whatever.

[Granger]

Perhaps the inheritance system was broken when the belief sliders that they were talking about on the wiki was removed? I unno.. friend tested it and can still do the runestone thing, just doesn't get any LP from the deceased or whatever.

Inheritance system was removed since it was abused (LP Banks in PClaims, Prayers that gave you effective higher stats than your ancestor had). These days you only get the claim of your ancestor, noththing more.

There are voices, mine among them, that this in incompatible with the idea of an endless (wipeless) world, bad since it encourages throwaway alts and in gerneral hindrance for player retention: Should you die after several months the will to mindless regrind stats&abilities to be usefull again in your village is certainly lacking with many players, thus the often heard statement 'cu next world'. IMHO there should be a mechanic that will help you return to old glory within a reasonable timeframe, so that death has still a harsh penalty but isn't that final - in terms of the involvement of players with the game - as it is now.

[Bowshot125]

So why not death for a week & then you come back? Your progress will be halted and whoever killed you would take your shit. You start with nothing but your character again. Why can't we have that?
Edit: Too much ARK.

[TheLoli]

Ah I see. Yeah I am in agreement to such a thing, and in truth the permadeath thing itself might turn some players away from this game, but I myself don't mind it that much. A game I played before this was Eve Online, and while they didn't have exactly a permanent death like this game, there was a loss of skill points if you didn't purchase the next level of clone and someone came by to blow you up. And over there skill points lost could mean the loss of many months of work, maybe even a year, depending. Although I think that they have since changed that system so there isn't so much of a loss over there if you get killed anymore.

I think being able to retain some portion of what your character lost outside of only claims might help keep some players and maybe bring new players in. More content, game improvements, etc would also help a lot too. On many subjects I probably don't have much of a right to say anything since I've only been playing a week now, but I would like to see this game succeed.